Mero Dhangadhi

since when is kathmandu called kathmandu? was there a time when it was called kantipur or? i'm confused

Yep! “Kantipur” or “Kantipuri Nagari” was a famous name for Kathmandu around medieval times. Kanti is another name for goddess Laxmi, and puri is a place or a region. 

Kathmandu was also known as Kasthamandap, Kastha (काष्ठ) means “wood” and Mandap (मण्डप) means “covered stage” or “covered shelter” in Sanskrit. This name was popular I think after the famous Kasthamandap building was build in Basantapur Durbar Square during the Malla Dynasty (16th century-ish). Old Kathmandu is famous for being made out of wooden carvings and things like that. Even today when you wander through the various Durbar Squares you see the traditional wooden carved windows and doors and other structures. 

I wasn’t sure about the order at which the names came about, so I asked my parents. They think Kantipur came first, followed by Kasthamandap, followed by Kathmandu. But again, they’re not sure and maybe some of my followers know the timeline and wouldn’t mind adding to this post. 

Honestly, Nepal is a multiethnical, multicultural and multilingual country and it's sad that these days languages are not being passed down to the next Generation. I understand it's much easier if everyone in a country speaks the same language but we should prevent minority languages from losing their importance. What about incorporating words from lets say Newari or Sherpa Kura into our everyday Nepali? It really would enrich "Nepali" and it would sort of honour the minority languages at least

Well the reason a lot of the minority languages aren’t being passed down isn’t something that just started happening now. There are a lot of reasons for it, but I know the Rana and the Shah dynasties have been trying to wipe out a lot of these cultures during their rule. So Nepali schools didn’t (and pretty sure still don’t) teach these languages and people had to learn Nepali to pass the school board exams, hence the decrease in non-nepali language population. There are quite a few influences from Newari into Nepali and from a couple other languages too (I posted some articles and sources on here a few months ago relating to that. Check the “language” tag on the blog). It would be nice to have more influences from other languages into Nepali but I think what’s most important is that the minority languages should be part of the school curriculums and taught alongside Nepali and English. Each student should have to pick one secondary language to learn and then this way the languages are preserved in their original form. And they’d also learn about different cultures in their own countries. Like you said Nepal is multiethnical, multicultural and multilingual country and I think this would be a nice way of preserving some of that.